Pandit Ravi Shankar was unhappy as I was drawing more applause: Annapurna Devi

Sitar exponent Ravi Shankar's wife Annapurna Devi says she had to choose between marital bliss over professional recognition — and she chose the former.

| TNN | Updated: Sep 1, 2014, 06:02 IST

Pandit Ravi Shankar. (Getty Images photo)

KOLKATA: In the extremely rarefied atmosphere of the finest exponents of Indian classical music, she is a “virtuoso’s virtuoso”. Ironically, only a handful of people have been fortunate enough to have heard her play. Now, nearly 60 years since legendary surbahar and sitar exponent Annapurna Devi completely vanished from the public eye (and ear), she has finally broken her silence on why she left her promising concert career and became a recluse: it was to save her marriage with Pandit Ravi Shankar.
“Panditji (Shankar) was not happy, as I received more appreciation than he did from both the audience and the critics whenever we performed together in the 1950s,” the 88-year-old told TOI at her apartment in Breach Candy, Mumbai. “And that”, she said, “had a negative impact on our marriage. Though he never categorically stopped me from performing in public, he made it clear in several ways that he wasn’t happy with the fact that I was drawing more applause.”

She said she had to choose marital bliss over professional recognition — and she chose the former. “I was an introvert, more of a family person. I was keener to save the marriage than to earn name and fame.”

It was one of the cruellest ironies of fate that the marriage between two of the country’s most gifted musicians could not ultimately be saved, despite her enormous sacrifice. “I tried all I could, because I did not want to hurt my father, Ustad Allauddin Khan, who taught us whatever we know of music. He was a devout, god-fearing person. He certainly did not like to see his only daughter’s marriage falling apart. But Panditji already had other women in his life,” she said.

Ravi Shankar plays sitar during a performance at a World Music Institute concert in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City, on May 16, 1990. (Getty Images file photo)

Annapurna was born to sarod maestro Allauddin, one of the country’s foremost classical musicians of the 20th century, in Maihar, then in the Central Provinces (now Madhya Pradesh), in 1926. Along with her brother Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and many others who became famous later, she took training in music from her father since childhood. Shankar, aged 18, came to Maihar to learn from Allauddin in 1938.

Allauddin first trained Annapurna in dhrupad and sitar. But he later asked her to concentrate on the surbahar, an instrument that is similar to the sitar but heavier and more difficult to play.

In 1982, decades after her separation with Shankar, she married her student Rooshikumar Pandya. Pandya did everything possible to take care of his guru till he breathed his last in April 2013.

The marriage between Annapurna and Ravi Shankar was actually the idea of the latter’s elder brother, Uday Shankar, who popularised Indian dance in the world by adapting European theatrical techniques to it. Uday had sought Allauddin’s permission so that two of the country’s best-known families in the performing arts could be united by marriage, and Allauddin was known to have given his consent after initial hesitations.

The marriage happened in 1941, following Hindu rituals. A year later, their only son, Subhendra Shankar (Shubho) was born. But Subho was destined to meet with what Devi claimed was an “untimely, unattended and miserable death” in 1992 in a charitable hospital in the US. Why this neglect? “Panditji said he could not take care of Shubho because he had his own family then (Sukanya and Anoushka Shankar). I wondered why he did not consider Shubho also to be a part of his own family,” Annapurna said.

There is, however, no such allegation when it comes to Ravi Shankar’s duty towards Allauddin. “Panditji had absolute guru shraddha,” Annapurna stressed. “He did what he could (for Allauddin).”

After their marriage, Shankar and Annapurna initially performed together to thunderous applause in various parts of the country, including at Talkatora Gardens and the Constitution Club in New Delhi and at Eden Gardens and Park Circus in Kolkata. A few of those who were fortunate enough to have witnessed the historic duets have immortalized those through their tales and memoirs.

Ravi Shankar playing sitar on May 31, 1966. (Getty Images file photo)

Things, however, started to go awry between the duo soon afterwards and she began to gradually withdraw herself from the outside world.

She last performed in public in 1956, and decided to confine herself to her Breach Candy apartment after Shankar left for the US with his family acquaintance-cum-live-in partner Kamala Shastri in the next decade. Shankar came to meet her only once, in 1980.

Many of Allauddin’s students, whose lessons remained incomplete following his death, had no one to look up to but Annapurna. They included Allauddin’s nephew Ustad Bahadur Khan, grandson Ustad Aashish Khan and disciple Pandit Nikhil Banerjee.

Ravi Shankar (right) with former Beatle George Harrison in New York, on July 27, 1971. (Getty Images file photo)

“Though Parkinson’s has kept her confined to the bed, she is still mentally alert as she has always been,” said Haldipur, who looks after Annapurna along with another of her disciples, Suresh Vyas.

“She regularly watches news on TV and listens to classical music renditions on the radio. She does not meet anyone and has long stopped teaching. There are attendants who look after her. I only try to ensure that she doesn’t face any difficulty and that things run smoothly,” Haldipur added.

Since she retired from the public eye, Annapurna guarded her privacy so zealously that she has declined requests by numerous national and international figures — including former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, whom she admired — to come out and play. She has been bestowed several of the country’s most prestigious honours in absentia — Padma Bhushan (1977), Deshikottam (1999) and a fellowship of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (2004).

The awards could never be a measure of her true position in the pantheon of classical music, but perhaps an idea of her genius could be got from something Ustad Ali Akbar Khan had once said: “Put Ravi Shankar, Pannalal (Ghosh) and me on one side and put Annapurna on the other. Yet, her side of the scale would be heavier.”

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